StriviaMakesTriviaAnAdventure

Strivia (Free) by Big Bolt Games is a puzzle trivia game that mixes elements of Jeopardy–level questions with game show risk. Try to answer all of the questions correctly. If you lose, it will cost you.

Players are presented with a board with colored tiles. Each color represents a category. Players tap on a tile to see the question. If you answer correctly, the tile turns white, showing that you’ve successfully closed it. If you answer incorrectly, the tile, plus two surrounding tiles, will turn black, blocking you from moving further without going around the tiles. When you get to one of the end questions and answer correctly, you win.

On the board, there will be a group of tiles. The available tiles to choose from will be highlighted. The categories included technology, history, sports, geography and literature. When you select a category, the question will appear on the lower half of the screen. There will be four possible answers to choose from. Many questions include subtle hints as to the answer. For example, one question asks, “Down ‘on the water front’ who played a character who ‘coulda been a contender?” The “on the waterfront” clue helps the player figure out what movie the quote was from and who stared in it.

If you answer correctly, you win the tile and it turns white. You can then advance to the next tile. Players can only choose from tiles that are next to ones that have been won.

If you have a question that you are unsure of the answer to, you can spend three gems to have two incorrect answers removed. You can also spend three gems to exchange it for another question. If you answer incorrectly, you can spend one gem to see what the right answer was.

If you answer incorrectly, the tile and two adjacent tiles will turn black. This will block your way, causing you to reroute your path. If too many tiles turn black, you won’t be able to make it to the final round of questions. If you really get stuck, you can spend five gems to restore a black tile and try again.

Each game costs 10 gems to play each time. You start off with 40 gems and earn more when you win a game. Even the questions on the easy level can be fairly difficult. It won’t be long before you are out of gems and need to buy more in order to continue playing.

The trivia questions cover a very broad mixture of information. Most of the easy questions can be considered common knowledge, or at least have clues to help you guess the answer. However, once you get to the last question of an easy game, the trivia is unbelievably specific and much harder than it should be. Without cheating and looking up the information on the Internet, you’ll wind up spending all of your gems and either having to delete the app, or spend money through in-app purchases to buy more.

I enjoyed playing the game for the sake of the trivia. However, I didn’t appreciate how expensive every game is. If I didn’t cheat by looking up the answers on the Internet, I would have lost all of my gems within an hour. The high cost of each game makes it score very low on the replay value scale. This app is fun and offers a unique way to play a game of trivia. Just don’t expect to play for more than an hour unless you plan on spending real cash to buy more gems.